To Crop Or Not To Crop, That Is The Question

While some like to present their photographs unedited or straight-out-of-camera, it turns out that a little snipping here and there can transform good images into great ones. Did you know that some of the most iconic photographs of the century are actually cropped versions of their originals? Check out the gallery below and tell us what you think!

Properly framing your shots to include vital imagery and information can result in some magnificent photographs. Sometimes, less really is more, as these powerful images have shown us. We’ve compiled some of the most recognizable pictures and put the original and cropped versions side by side for comparison.

“The most used photograph of the event was taken by Jeff Widener of the Associated Press, from a sixth floor balcony of the Beijing Hotel, about half a mile (800 meters) away from the scene. Widener was injured and suffering from flu. The image was taken using a Nikon FE2 camera through a Nikkor 400mm 5.6 ED IF lens and TC-301 teleconverter. Low on film, a friend hastily obtained a roll of Fuji 100 ASA color negative film, allowing him to make the shot. Though he was concerned that his shots were not good, his image was syndicated to a large number of newspapers around the world, and was said to have appeared on the front page of all European papers.”

“The Grammy Award-winning album packaging was art-directed by Robert Fraser, designed by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, his wife and artistic partner, and photographed by Michael Cooper. It featured a colourful collage of life-sized cardboard models of famous people on the front of the album cover and lyrics printed on the back cover, the first time this had been done on a British pop LP. The Beatles themselves, in the guise of the Sgt. Pepper band, were dressed in custom-made military-style outfits made of satin dyed in day-glo colours.”

“Phan Thị Kim Phúc is a Vietnamese-Canadian best known as the child depicted in the Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph taken during the Vietnam War on June 8, 1972. The iconic photo taken in Trang Bang by AP photographer Nick Ut shows her at about nine years of age running naked on a road after being severely burned on her back by a South Vietnamese napalm attack.”

“Wanting to highlight her strong Gospel roots, Art Kane tried waving the camera in a circular motion to try to make halo shapes from the light in Aretha’s eyes. This photo is also a rare Art Kane crop as virtually all his images are composed in full frame.”

“Guerrillero Heroico (English: “Heroic Guerrilla Fighter”) is an iconic photo of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara wearing his black beret taken by *Alberto Korda*. It was taken on March 5, 1960, in Havana, Cuba, at a memorial service for victims of the La Coubre explosion and by the end of the 1960s turned the charismatic and controversial leader into a cultural icon. Korda has said that at the moment he shot the picture, he was drawn to Guevara’s facial expression, which showed “absolute implacability” as well as anger and pain. Years later, Korda would say that the photo showed Che’s firm and stoic character. Emphasizing the image’s ubiquitous nature and wide appeal, the Maryland Institute College of Art called the picture a symbol of the 20th century and the world’s most famous photo. Versions of it have been painted, printed, digitized, embroidered, tattooed, silk-screened, sculpted or sketched on nearly every surface imaginable, leading the Victoria and Albert Museum to say that the photo has been reproduced more than any other image in photography."

Purists might prefer untouched photos, but perfectionists may choose otherwise. It’s definitely a matter of choice and taste so let us know in the comments below if you you usually crop your shots or not!

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21 Comments

I'm not opposed to this technique however I never cropped my photos in postproduction, but before shoting, all the example showed below are surely better in the cropped version, I liked also the uncropped version of the Tank Man picture but in this case the photo acquires a different meaning and is not easy to see the little man facing the row of tanks.

I'm not really comfortable with cropping a photo. I want to bwork on composing my shots properly. But that's just my personal preference. Although there are cases where in you can't avoid cropping a photo. The article on the other hand is very informative, although seeing "The decisive moment" by Henri Cartier-Bresson cropped sent chills down my spine, especially since HCB (Henri Cartier-Bresson) never cropped any of his photos.

the act of capturing a photograph in the camera to film (or file) is cropping a scene & framing it in the way the photographer wants it presented to the world. Cropping in post is the same. Subjective photojournalism or not images captured are the interpretation of the moment by the photographer.

I never really crop these days but if it would help the photo i would. If i was working with digital photography i would be more likely to take wide shots that would need cropping but in 35mm I try to crop as i shoot to get the best negative i can first time.

I haven't cropped my Pics by now as I love to work on my skill and get what I intend at initial shot. Especially as I'm mostly shooting slides, where everything HAS to be right (I love to project the Pics on walls, not only to scan them). But one of my most recent films led me to think about cropping a few days ago, as the results would definitely be more what I intended to do, but I was limited by not having a close up Lens for my Bronica. With a min focal range of 1 m, I sometimes have objects or people in the back of some of my pictures that I did not really want to have on them. When you e.g. want to capture just the structure of something, you only want that structure in the picture, not also a trash bin at the left side or something like that. But you can't get closer as the picture would be blurry then... So I thought about cropping, but haven't made my mind up, as this feels strange... It is interesting to see, what you think about this technique...

Great article, really enjoyed it. I tend to crop in digital (more to straighten my perspective or in portraiture to get more emphasis) and just do the full frame in film because I like to see the edges. If I was enlarging them I'd probably crop a bit I guess, but I haven't done it much before.

I avoid cropping and try to frame within the viewfinder, nice and easy with a zoom lens. But sometimes crop when I've corrected 'tilted' photos.
Have to point out though, the 'uncropped' photos of the Sgt. Pepper album sleeve isn't the same photo. For starters, it's in black and white and the Beatles aren't in their finished photo poses. Also, I'm pretty sure, from books and magazine articles, the actual photo sessions were taken on 6x6.

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